


Eighteen Days

by Kozumye



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akakuro - Freeform, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, KuroAka - Freeform, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Explicit Sex, Oneshot, There's a lot of crying, akaashi has a crush on bokuto, bokuken, bokuken is married, it's mostly soft and sad, kuroo has a crush on kenma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25865812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kozumye/pseuds/Kozumye
Summary: There's a stillness in the air at the wedding, but only two people feel it. It's a shame when your crush gets married and you're the best man, isn't it? It's a shame that, even though you've known for so long, it's finally come to an end.Kuroo and Akaashi know all too well what that's like, watching Koutarou and Kenma get married. They know all too well that it's come to an end.Eighteen days is enough for a honeymoon, and apparently, a new love.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Kuroo Tetsurou, Bokuto Koutarou/Kozume Kenma
Comments: 13
Kudos: 77





	Eighteen Days

The ceremony is beautiful.  
  
It’s filled with whites and silvers and blues, and Kenma cries.  
  
Kuroo thinks it’s the first time he’s seen Kenma cry tears of joy, and his own eyes sting. Still, he stands by him, presenting the rings.  
  
It’s not surprising when Bokuto cries too, a death-grip on Kenma’s hands, choking out his vows and declaring his love for Kenma in all his usual cheesy-as-fuck romanticism. He uses words that Kuroo wonders if Akaashi taught him, words he wonders if he had to look up to properly express his love.  
  
Kuroo was selfish.  
  
He clenched his teeth when they kissed, ignoring the pain in his heart and the sting in his eyes, clapping and smiling all the same. He was selfish for loving Kenma, even now, when he wears the wedding band and Bokuto Koutarou is now Kozume Koutarou- even now, when he’s dancing at the reception with Koutarou in his arms, whispering something only they can hear, smiling like all the eyes on him aren’t a big deal.  
  
Kuroo wonders if Koutarou's made Kenma strong, wonders if Kenma’s suddenly okay with all the attention he’s getting. If it was _his_ wedding, he’d have-  
  
No.  
  
He wasn’t going to do that to himself. This wasn’t his wedding. He had to get over that.  
  
Kuroo swipes his hand down his face, accidentally bumping someone’s arm with his elbow. He sighs, turning to apologize, when he notices a familiar gaze of dark, gunmetal blue eyes.  
  
“Keiji,” Kuroo says, almost like he was surprised. He _wasn’t-_ he _shouldn’t_ be- Akaashi had been Bokuto’s best man, he’d walked down the aisle with his arm linked in the other’s twice today. But… there was something so _different_ about catching Akaashi in this light. His cheeks were dark, burgundy, and there was a frown on his face. His eyes are glossy and for a moment Kuroo wonders if he imagines it, the way he looks up at him with a broken heart. Akaashi’s fingers are shaking around his glass of champagne.  
  
“Kuroo-san,” Akaashi manages, ripping his eyes away to stare into his drink. Always polite as ever.  
  
There’s a hint of hurt in the way he holds himself, different from the perfect posture he usually keeps, and he wonders if he’s in the same situation. Kuroo finds himself frowning as well, eyes on his own drink, shoulders awkwardly brushing Akaashi’s.  
  
“It’s weird,” Kuroo chokes out, voice strained. He sees Akaashi’s head whip back to him at his unusually weak tone, sees his shoulders lower when he watches a tear drip down Kuroo’s face. Kuroo wipes it with his sleeve, then looks away. “Don’t you think? Seeing them after so many years.”  
  
Akaashi is silent for a moment, glancing back and forth from the dance floor to Kuroo’s pained frame. The dance is almost over.  
  
“It’s strange,” Akaashi confirms, tone soft and just as frail. _Ah_ , Kuroo thinks, _He’s in the same situation._ “But it’s not new, is it? It never has been.” There’s another pause, and Kuroo wonders if he’s doing it on purpose, creating suspense like he would in one of his novels, like some thrilling secretive dialogue. “It’s just…”  
  
Kuroo sighs, nodding as if he understands. He does.  
  
“It’s just,” He repeats, as if Akaashi had said something incredibly profound.  
  
He notes the way Akaashi is taking him in, sad eyes and all, and they stay together for the remainder of the reception. At one point, Kuroo finds his hand on Akaashi’s knee under their table, and Akaashi lets him, scoots slightly closer, as if that touch is the only thing grounding him here and keeping him in the vicinity of the man he’s in love with instead of running and hiding.  
  
The ride home is quiet, calm, and almost awkward. Not quite. They hadn’t carpooled originally, but the message was clear all night. They had a string of conversations without opening their mouths, gentle touches and darkened looks all they needed to convey their emotions. Kuroo thought about placing his hand on Akaashi’s thigh as he drove, but then thought against it, seeing Akaashi fiddle with his hands in his lap. Ah. He was nervous.  
  
There’s something so comforting about allowing Akaashi into his apartment, letting him discard of his suit jacket and folding it neatly on the back of his couch before he stands in the center of the room. He opens his mouth, wanting to say something, and Kuroo watches, listens, because he has nothing better to do. Akaashi closes his mouth and Kuroo exhales his held breath.  
  
“Are you sure?” Kuroo asks, low and soft and he wonders for a second if he’s asking _himself_ .  
  
Akaashi shuts his eyes, breathes like he’s trying not to cry, then nods. He tilts his head up, looks Kuroo in the eyes. Two broken pieces, empty from the day. Kuroo kisses him.  
  
Thumb holding up his chin, lips cold and soft and trembling slightly; Kuroo realizes in this instant that Akaashi is more frail than he appears, more porcelain than he tries to be.  
  
Kuroo’s bed isn't made for two people- the sheets were haphazardly thrown off this morning, blanket bunched at the bottom- he wasn’t expecting company tonight, he was expecting to come home and cry his eyes out. Maybe he’d have to do that too.  
  
Akaashi is surprisingly easy to handle- his arms are around Kuroo’s neck as they adjust to the bed, back flat against the mattress and lips parted as they retract from one another for just a moment. Kuroo sees Kenma in the way his lips close in a hard line, eyes low and eyelashes long. Akaashi sees Bokuto in the way Kuroo undoes his tie, works his fingers through his shirt’s buttons. They kiss, hands sliding slowly, calmly, _sadly_ , and they pretend.  
  
That’s what this is- pretending. It’s like crying underwater just to hide the tears.  
  
The lube is far too cold, too striking, especially after they’d just warmed up to each other, and Akaashi whimpers as it touches him. He warms up Kuroo’s fingers and Kuroo is slow. Any other time this would be excruciating, the pace they moved at, languid and leaving room for anticipation. They weren’t in a hurry. They were tired, sad, and needed this.  
  
Kuroo’s lips find the notches of Akaashi’s hip bones, kisses the skin of his that’s smooth enough he can imagine it’s someone else. For a moment, he finds himself thinking of Akaashi, thinking of how beautiful _he_ looks- not Kenma, not anyone else in the world. The breath rushes out of him for a moment and he can’t quite get it back as he blinks once, twice, three times. Then he pushes in, watches Akaashi grapple the pillows and sigh soft moans.  
  
He thrusts. Akaashi moans. It’s calming. Therapeutic. They melt into each other.  
  
They use two condoms and kiss until they fall asleep, skin on skin and hands in hair. It’s warm.  
  
Kuroo wakes up sweating more than he had the previous night, frowning at the blazing sun that decided to peek through the blinds, at the way the window was slightly pushed open allowing the heat to creep up on them. He curses Kenma for having a summer wedding. He notes the way Akaashi had curled into himself, wearing only his underwear, and he frowns. Kuroo shuts the window and sighs, eyes finding their way back to Akaashi’s sleeping form once again. He wonders if it’s normal for someone to look tired even as they sleep, if that exhaustion is from lack of sleep or just from life. He understands either way, and clicks on the overhead fan.  
  
He contemplates kissing Akaashi’s forehead- wonders if doing so would make him heal faster, help him love Kenma less, wonders if Akaashi wants to heal with him, if he could let himself heal with Akaashi.  
  
He doesn’t.  
  
Kuroo makes coffee, but not breakfast. Akaashi wakes an hour after him, dressed back up in his own clothes. Kuroo expected that, but still frowns, feels his stomach turn with disappointment.  
  
“Are you leaving?” Kuroo asks, turning Akaashi’s mug so the handle is facing him.  
  
Akaashi hesitates as he enters the kitchen, hands clasped in front of him still. Had he always done that?  
  
“Do you want me to leave?” He responds with a question, and Kuroo sighs, pushing the mug towards him. The answer was obvious. _No._  
  
Akaashi understood, took the mug and sat at the table. Kuroo sat across from him, blinking slowly, chewing on his lips when he wasn’t sipping his own coffee.  
  
“I have clean clothes,” Kuroo mentions to Akaashi, and the other nods his head.  
  
“How long do you want me to stay…?” Akaashi says, and it’s nearly a whisper, like he’s unsure if he should ask. Kuroo pretends to ponder Akaashi’s question, as if he hadn’t thought about it over and over in the space between when they each woke up.  
  
“Until the honeymoon’s over?” Kuroo says, and suddenly he sounds small, like he’s not sure if that’s okay to say, like he’s afraid of scaring Akaashi off.  
  
Akaashi just nods.  
  
“I’ll need to get my glasses from my apartment,” Is what he says, and slides his hand palm-up for Kuroo on the top of the table. Kuroo takes it, and it’s warm for once. He remembers how cold they were the night before, sliding across him, and it took a good hour to warm up properly. He trains his eyes on their hands. Akaashi’s is a lot bigger than Kenma’s. He thinks he likes that.  
  
“I’ll need to get more groceries,” Kuroo responds, and Akaashi nods again, drinking his coffee. It’s tranquil together. They’re at a low, in a grassy prairie, with nobody except each other. Maybe that’s enough right now. Maybe this is good.  
  
Akaashi does get his glasses late that day, along with his clothes and work things. Kuroo gets groceries for Akaashi upon his request- packaged onigiri, a special brand of rice, cup noodles. He gets fresh produce in hopes that he’ll be able to cook at least one day out of the eighteen they have to look forward to, hopes that he’ll be able to stay alive and be productive for at least an hour. If not for him, then for Akaashi.  
  
And that becomes a mindset.  
  
 _If not for me, then for Akaashi._  
  
Kuroo makes coffee every morning, collects the newspaper,and buys cable T.V. so they can watch Family Feud. For Akaashi. Kuroo showers, picks up his clothes, and always brushes his teeth. For Akaashi. Kuroo learns to cook onigiri, and vacuums the carpets, and makes his bed every morning. For Akaashi.  
  
He doesn’t know if eighteen days is enough to fall out of love and back in again. All he knows is that he wants to keep being with Akaashi. He likes who he is when he’s not thinking of Kenma, when his fingers are pressed to Akaashi’s skin, tangled in his hair, or inside him.  
  
Oh, that was another thing. The sex.  
  
It didn’t feel like sex.  
  
If Kuroo was an artist, he’d say it felt like sculpting; it felt like painting something so intricate and smooth, something so beautiful and right. Something that couldn’t be messed up no matter how many strokes hit the canvas, no matter what he carved off of the sculpture. Having sex with Akaashi felt like art- felt like _love_ \- felt like what he wanted.  
  
He loses track of time in the way his fingertips coast across Akaashi’s skin, in the way they kiss through tears each night until one of them goes slack with sleep, in the way they fill out crosswords and sing along to songs on the radio in the early stages of the morning before work calls out to them. He loses track of the eighteen days they spend together- and Akaashi doesn’t leave.  
  
The honeymoon is over, they both know it, and he’s still here. Kuroo wonders for a moment if it’s because Akaashi is afraid of Kuroo being alone- if he’s healed already, if he doesn’t need to be around him anymore. Then a body presses to his back on the twenty-first day, palms against his chest, lips tasting the nape of his neck.  
  
“Do you want me to leave?” Akaashi asks- voice as silken as ever, and Kuroo remembers the first day, sitting at the kitchen table. He frowns, hands ghosting over the toast he’d been making. He’s tense.  
  
Kuroo hesitantly sets down the butterknife, hands covering Akaashi’s on his chest. He laces their fingers together, lowering his head to kiss the very tip of Akaashi’s index finger. Akaashi shifts, pressing his cheek to Kuroo’s nape, sighing.  
  
“I don’t want to either,” He whispers, and Kuroo feels the goosebumps on his skin rise. He shifts, turning to face Akaashi, his hands finding his waist. He doesn’t look Akaashi in the eyes, keeping his own trained on the collarbones peeking from a borrowed shirt.  
  
“Do you think it’s too early?” Kuroo asks, hoping Akaashi knew what it meant. _Is it too early to love again?_  
  
Akaashi hesitates, and Kuroo feels his heart in his throat, feels his fingers tremble slightly at the sudden panic. It was amazing how much Akaashi could control Kuroo’s emotions without realizing it.  
  
“Do you think eleven years is too early?” And then: “Do you think _nineteen_ years is too early?”  
  
Ah, of course. Akaashi had been in love since highschool, he remembers the story of why he chose Fukurodani, seeing the ace in all his glory at age fifteen. That was his eleven years. Akaashi remembers what Kuroo had told him, about his first and only crush being Kenma, from the second they met at eight years old until he was twenty-seven. That was his nineteen years.  
  
He meets Akaashi’s eyes, and for once they’re hopeful. Kuroo wants to cry, he thinks- but he doesn't know what he wants other than Akaashi right now.  
  
Akaashi’s hands cradle Kuroo’s face now, lips parted in anticipation for what he wanted, eyebrows pinched in a cute way- Kuroo briefly thinks about how he wants to kiss the wrinkles away, wants to keep him young forever right here in this moment. He connects their foreheads and exhales, as does Akaashi. And they melt.  
  
Their lips meet in a shock, a gentle spread of skin on skin, not unlike the other times they’d kissed- but now with the promise of so much more. Decades pass in seconds and Akaashi is cold, still, but Kuroo is warm. There’s hot tears on his cheeks when he pulls away, drinking in Akaashi’s calm expression.  
  
“Stay with me for the next nineteen years, at least,” Kuroo whispers against his lips, in the space between them, the air of the kitchen and the hot summer day.  
  
“Okay,” Akaashi whispers back, then kisses Kuroo again, and _really_ kisses him. This one isn’t as soft, but passionate- his lips are cold and hard and pressing urgently, lovingly, like he knows what he wants and he’s trying to take it. Kuroo gives it to him. He lets his hands slide across Akaashi’s shoulders, waist, stomach, chest, tangles it in his hair before he pulls away, grinning. He thinks this is maybe the first time he’s smiled in two years- a real smile, with feelings behind it, one that he means entirely. Akaashi smiles back, giggles slightly, and Kuroo thinks he looks beautiful when he blushes. So he tells him.  
  
“You look beautiful when you blush.” Blunt, yet still suave. Kuroo feels like he can say anything now.  
  
“Thank you.” Akaashi smiles again, seeming so much more outwardly calm than the storm that undoubtedly rages inside him.  
  
“I mean it,” Kuroo repeats, kissing Akaashi’s forehead. The toast on the counter behind him was left for dead as he peppered Akaashi’s face in kisses, murmuring the praises that he knows Akaashi hates in bed but loves in the light of day.  
  
So, they love.  
  
Eighteen days turned to twenty-one turned to forty-six turned to one-hundred-seventy-two.  
  
They don’t tell Koutarou and Kenma how they got together- they just say that it _happened_ , (because it did,) and Koutarou helped Kuroo pick out the ring. It’s gold- not silver, and it’s the first thing Akaashi notices. He smiles. He nods. Kuroo lifts him up and kisses him like he’s drowning and Akaashi is oxygen.  
  
They buy a house.  
  
This house has blinds, not curtains, and they’re closed all the time in the summer, but open when it rains. Kuroo finds Akaashi at the back porch on nights when it’s rainy, a blanket around his shoulders and book in his hands, eyes skimming eagerly across the pages. On sunny evenings, Kuroo cooks dinner and they stay in, basking in the glory of ignoring the outside world. Neither of them like sunny weather.  
  
They like their days together.  
  
Seven-hundred-thirty.  
  
Kuroo likes that it’s easy to breathe with Akaashi, likes that Akaashi continues to be the breath that propels him. They still hold hands a bit tighter when they’re near Koutarou and Kenma, still look at each other with a glint in their eyes, but there’s nothing left there. Just a simple reminder that they’ve overcome their eleven years and nineteen years. A simple reminder that there’s only them now  
  
One-thousand-fifty-five.  
  
Maybe they notice it, that their house is full of blacks and golds and reds, but they don’t point it out. Maybe they notice that they favor autumns and winters to summers, but they don’t point it out. Akaashi can’t drink champagne anymore, so Kuroo pours him red wine instead.  
  
They live every day as a testament to the fact that they exist, so fully, with each other. They love harder and undoubted and true. There’s a calendar filled with marks tacked against their wall; eighteen days are crossed out. They stop counting days once it becomes apparent that there’s no need to anymore- because now, all the days they have left are the days they’ll have together.  
  


And that’s enough.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I had an idea and wrote half of this at 6am and the other half at 3am the next night. Welcome to my brain. Feel free to check me out on [ my Twitter! ](https://twitter.com/Kozumye) Comments, kudos, and shares are appreciated! <3


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